An Introduction to the Five-Factor Model and Its Applications Robert R McCrae National Institute on Aging, NIH Oliver P John University of California at Berkeley ABSTRACT The five-factor model of personality is a hierarchical organization of personality traits in terms of five basic dimensions: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience Research using both natural language adjectives and theoretically based personality questionnaires supports the comprehensiveness of the model and its applicability across observers and cultures This article summarizes the history of the model and its supporting evidence; discusses conceptions of the nature of the factors; and outlines an agenda for theorizing about the origins and operation of the factors We argue that the model should prove useful both for individual assessment and for the elucidation of a number of topics of interest to personality psychologists What are the basic dimensions of personality, the most important ways in which individuals differ in their enduring emotional, interpersonal, experiential, attitudinal, and motivational styles? Personality theorists have offered hundreds of candidates, and for decades factor analysts attempted to bring order to the resulting confusion by factoring personality scales Instead of resolving the issue, however, these studies only contributed another layer of controversy, most familiar in the competWe are grateful to Michael Bond, Peter Borkenau, David Buss, Paul Costa, Donald Fiske, Lew Goldberg, Robert Hogan, and Warren Norman for comments on this manuscript, and to Stephen G West and the associate editors of this journal for their advice and assistance on this special issue Correspondence may be addressed to Robert R McCrae, Personality, Stress, and Coping Section Gerontology Research Center, 4940 Eastern Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21224 This article lies in the public domain because it was written for and funded by the federal government 176 McCrae and John ing systems of Guilford, Cattell, and H J Eysenck So when Tupes and Christal (1961; reprinted in this issue) found five recurrent factors in analyses of personality ratings in eight different samples, they were understandably surprised: In many ways it seems remarkable that such stability should be found in an area which to date has granted anything but consistent results Undoubtedly the consistency has always been there, but it has been hidden by inconsistency of factorial techniques and philosophies, the lack of replication using identical variables, and disagreement among analysts as to factor titles, (p 12) Despite their work—and the more widely read replication of Norman (1963)—the importance of these five factors remained hidden from most personality psychologists throughout the 1960s and 1970s In the 1980s, however, researchers from many different traditions were led to conclude that these factors were fundamental dimensions of personality, found in self-reports and ratings, in natural languages and theoretically based questionnaires, in children, college students, and older adults, in men and women, and in English, Dutch, German, and Japanese samples (John, 1990a) All five factors were shown to have convergent and discriminant validity across instruments and observers, and to endure across decades in adults (McCrae & Costa, 1990) As a brief introduction to their nature Table lists definers of the positive pole of each of these factors This new consensus has grown rapidly Two or three years ago, a special issue on the topic would doubtless have been filled with articles offering evidence for or against the model itself (e.g., Borkenau & Ostendorf, 1989; Noller, Law, & Comrey, 1987; Waller & Ben-Porath, 1987; Zuckerman, Kuhlman, & Camac, 1988) We will review some of that evidence here; it is also treated elsewhere (Digman, 1990; Goldberg, 1990; John, 1990a; Wiggins & Trapnell, in press) Today we believe it is more fruitful to adopt the working hypothesis that the five-factor model (FFM) of personality is essentially correct in its representation of the structure of traits' and to proceed to its implications for personality theory and its applications throughout psychology This has been our guiding principle behind this special issue In this article we use phrases like "structure of traits'" and "dimensions of personality" to refer to the patterns of covariation of traits across individuals, not to the organization of attributes within the individual (cf John 1990a p 96) Introduction 177 If this hypothesis is correct—if we have truly discovered the basic dimensions of personality—it marks a turning point for personality psychology Instead ofthe interminable disputes among competing systems that so long paralyzed the field, we could see cooperative research and cumulative findings Instead of the redundancy that results from measuring the same construct under a dozen different names, we could see an efficient integration of the literature across many instruments And instead ofthe lost insights that a haphazard selection of personality variables is likely to produce, we could see a complete and systematic pursuit of personality correlates The FFM could provide a common language for psychologists from different traditions, a basic phenomenon for personality theorists to explain, a natural framework for organizing research, and a guide to the comprehensive assessment of individuals that should be of value to educational, industrial/organizational, and clinical psychologists Even its most ardent defenders not claim that the FFM is the last word in the description of personality There are disputes among fivefactorists about the best interpretation of the factors; there are certainly important distinctions to be made at the level of the more molecular traits that define the factors; and it is possible that there are other basic dimensions of personality But some version of these five dimensions is at least necessary for an adequate description of individual differences, and if all personality researchers compare their preferred system to this framework, it should soon become clear whether and in what ways the model is deficient Naming and Identifying the Factors The consensus that five-factorists see among themselves may be puzzling to outsiders because the "disagreement among analysts as to factor titles" that Tupes and Christal noted still plagues the field (John, 1990b) Factor names reflect historical accidents, conceptual positions, and the entrenchment that comes from a published body of literature and from published instruments There are two prominent systems for naming the factors, one derived from the lexical tradition and one from the questionnaire tradition Many writers take Norman's (1963) annunciation of an "adequate taxonomy of personality attributes" derived from Cattell's reduction of natural language trait terms as the formal beginning of the FFM, and the factor numbers and names Norman chose—I: Extraversion or Sur- g) 00 OJ OJ c c 03 „ E ^ I •£, I s i ,0 (U OJ E C li ^ s ^ Q CJ C/5 OJ o o x: o X li c« 00 c S £; o - -C^ OJ ' C a 00 ^ 11/ ^" OS UH aa a a I OJ ' ^ Z HJ cn : ^ < ^ aa > !/l c c O o OJ CJ PH O -S c/: c o u O li c S ^ ^ II i e :5 I < I ali c li c c Hm o S o -s o c '^ ' i E ° u s Đ -a ô- a, I C li > o C/5 o — -1 cd OJ o II CJ 03 c I I II u cd o xi -^i "S C/5 QQ U tL< > £ -i — O > a E o 00 c „ B 'I* O OH O li •a „ T ^ c E B E S OJ C cd S^ E CJ TO z ^ a UJ E a li c c OJ ex o XI O OJ CN 12 ON 180 McCrae and John gency; II: Agreeableness; III: Conscientiousness; IV: Emotional Stability; and V: Culture—are often used Peabody and Goldberg (1989) have noted that the order in which these factors emerged roughly parallels their representation among English language trait terms in the dictionary: Many more words can be found to describe aspects of Factors I through III than of Factors IV and V The factor numbers, I to V, are thus meaningful designations Roman numerals also have the advantage of being theoretically neutral; they seem to stand above the fray of disputed factor interpretations The second tradition that led to the modern FFM comes from the analysis of questionnaires, and particularly from the work of H J Eysenck, who identified Extraversion (E) and Neuroticism (N) as major components of psychological tests (It was Wiggins, 1968, who dubbed these the "Big Two," setting the stage for Goldberg's 1981 designation of the FFM as the "Big Five.") Costa and McCrae (1980) added a dimension they called Openness to Experience (O), and later (1985, 1989) created scales to measure Agreeableness (A) and Conscientiousness (C) A number of publications (e.g., Borkenau & Ostendorf, 1990; Funder & Colvin, 1988; Tellegen & Waller, in press; Wiggins & Pincus, 1989; Zuckerman, Bernieri, Koestner, & Rosenthal, 1989) have adopted this nomenclature Note that N corresponds to low Emotional Stability, —IV, and O is a variant of Norman's Factor V If the advantage ofthe Norman numbers is their theoretical neutrality, the disadvantage is their low mnemonic value Initials, originally popularized by H J Eysenck, are easier to interpret, and they may be less theoretically laden than full names To those for whom Neuroticism connotes psychiatric disorder, negative affectivity (Watson & Clark, 1984) or simply nervousness may seem more apt; all can be characterized by N Likewise, E can also stand for energy or enthusiasm (cf Watson & Clark, in press); O for originality; A for affiliation (Leary, 1957) or affection (Brand, 1984), and C for constraint (Tellegen, 1982) or control (Krug & Johns, 1986) The claim of five-factor theorists is that these factors, singly or in combination, can be found in virtually all personality instruments, and a number of authors have compiled tables showing the putative assignment of standard personality scales or factors to the five (e.g Brand & Egan, 1989; Digman, 1990; Hogan, 1983; John, 1990a; see also Table 2) These tables can be extremely useful not only as a demonstration of the nature and pervasiveness of the five factors, but also as a guide to researchers and meta-analysts who need to identify alterna- Introduction tive measures ofthe same fundamental construct Similarly, researchers sometimes interpret their own factor analyses in terms of these five (e.g., Loehlin, 1987; Lorr, 1978; Noller et al., 1987) Here, too, the communicative power of the model is exploited The danger is that such identifications may be wrong Hogan (1983) classified Costa and McCrae's Openness scale as a measure of Conscientiousness; Noller et al (1987) interpreted a factor combining liberal thinking, assertiveness, rebelliousness, and imagination as (low) A; Costa and McCrae (1976) interpreted a similar factor as O The integrative value of the model is clearly compromised by such discrepancies Two approaches have been used to resolve such problems of classification John (1990a) formalized a rational strategy: A group of 10 judges familiar with the classic literature on the FFM assigned the 300 items of Gough and Heilbmn's (1983) Adjective Check List (ACL) to one of the factors Coefficient alpha reliabilities of the mean judgments exceeded 90 for all five dimensions This study demonstrated that substantial interrater agreement on the content of the factors is possible, and produced lists of items that correspond to common conceptions of the five factors McCrae, Piedmont, and Costa (1990) had raters judge the extent to which items of the California Psychological Inventory (CPI; Gough, 1987) were indicative or contraindicative of each of the five factors and analyzed CPI scales in terms of this item content Itemby-item analysis by multiple raters increases the objectivity of rational scale interpretation A complementary approach is empirical: Scales or new factors can be correlated with standard measures of the five factors (e.g., Yang & Bond, 1990) Table shows some results of this approach Briggs (this issue) describes and evaluates available measures ofthe factors Ideally, researchers would include at least two standard markers of each factor to examine the replicability of results.The Two Historical Paths to the Five-Factor Model The lexical approach It is well-known that the FFM originated in studies of natural language trait terms (John, Angleitner, & Ostendorf, 1988) In brief, AUport and Routine inclusion of a measure of general intelligence would also be useful, particularly in resolving questions about the nature of Factor V (McCrae & Costa, in press) OJ CJ C & -su '-• U o N C^ x: li Cl CJ C/5 CJ c li s o u z ;/^ E M o U OJ lden u nsci li & o U o U o II Đ T3 1ra -c D u ^ c§ c o c 00 c CA < li d) ca = S3 tn O OJ ntro o J U U a M l B CJ c M li T3 10 r5 r= x> CJ O o on s U O c/3 o u CJ O C/5 in c o 12 So o "o c cl i c ^ £ c 00 O y ^ x: X U S K 11 x: U O I CJ oo s; ^' i I c ON dJ CJ 00 cl i _c id Wai c00 o c o :Crae, ) oti ; nega ely li ^> c u % E (•^1 CJ cli x; — '- '^ CJ o^ -c •" i- — D x; I) CJ XI -o O a s Cd *.^ ts T3 O C ti U nj c u =ô ^ c 'ra 00 gcj.s E 00 I I £J i li CJ 00 I£ II ^^ o OJ CJ c T3 C li o o C CJ o rac OJ cd j^ •S X S • a O O^ oli tô 5' a: 00 Ê2 o^ § S2 li & £2 * - g c c •B ° > •3 -o "o F C C § Cd S a u g S CJ ca w '*" 184 McCrae and John Odbert (1936) abstracted terms from a dictionary; Cattell (1946) formed them into synonym clusters and then created rating scales contrasting groups of adjectives; Tupes and Christal (1961) obtained observer ratings on these 35 scales and factored them (Fiske, 1949, had also used a version of Cattell's rating scales in the earliest recovery of the five factors.) Norman used the best 20 rating scales from the Tupes and Christal study in his replications, and that set was subsequently used in many later studies Any emerging consensus on the five factors in the 1960s was quickly derailed by the controversy over implicit personality theory (reviewed by Borkenau in this issue); that controversy contributed to the demoralization of personality psychology in the 1970s, and the FFM went into exile: The most important new studies were the cross-cultural replications by Bond (1979; Bond, Nakazato, & Shiraishi, 1975) Reanalyses of earlier data sets by Digman and Takemoto-Chock (1981) and the meticulous analyses of Goldberg (1981, 1982) revived interest in the lexical approach and reintroduced the FFM to the mainstream of personality psychology There are several good reasons for beginning the search for personality dimensions in the natural language For the layperson, personality is defined by such terms as friendly, high-strung, and punctual These terms are the basic ways in which individuals understand themselves and others, akin to the folk concepts of Gough (1987) A complete theory of personality must ultimately explain the phenomena to which these terms refer and the ways in which they are used in everyday life And because psychologists must often rely on self-reports and peer ratings to gather their data, they must speak the language of their informants But there is one more compelling reason for studying trait language AUport and Odbert noted some 4,500 trait terms in English; surely such a wealth of vocabulary testifies to the social importance of personality traits Conversely, if traits are so important, it seems likely that they will all be represented in the language The lexical hypothesis holds that all important individual differences will have been noted by speakers of a natural language at some point in the evolution of the language and encoded in trait terms; by decoding these terms, we can discover the basic dimensions of personality To the extent that the lexical hypothesis is correct, analyses of language will provide a comprehensive taxonomy of personality traits If we assume that personality structure is universal, we should be able 202 McCrae and John five factors as matters chiefly of social perception and reputation, we adopt the view that traits are real entities (cf Funder, 1991), and we will focus here on explanations for the factors themselves as traits possessed by individuals Why are there individual differences in traits? Why the traits covary to form factors? Why these factors and not others? What is their origin in the species and in the individual? What is their neurophysiological basis, their course of development, their functional significance? In pursuing all these questions, theorists would well to consider the relation between the factors and the traits that define them Cattell (1946) viewed primary traits as the more meaningful level of analysis, whereas H.J Eysenck's (1967) theories addressed the superordinate dimensions of E and N Watson and Clark (in press) have suggested that one aspect of E, Positive Emotionality, is the core element, which motivates other elements such as sociability and activity; the factor expresses this functional unity Alternatively, it could be argued that individuals inherit a set of general predispositions associated with the five factors, and that environmental conditions determine the particular forms—the specific traits—in which the factors are expressed Psychophysiological theories Trait psychologists from AUport (1937) on have assumed that the experiential and behavioral regularities that we identify as traits have some physiological substrate H.J Eysenck's prominent status as a personahty theorist can be attributed in large part to his sustained efforts to develop a physiological theory of E and N (and later Psychoticism; H J Eysenck & S B G Eysenck, 1976) More recently, Cloninger (1988) has offered a biosocial theory of personality based on chemically coded neural networks, and Zuckerman (1984) has used comparative psychophysiology to explain sensation seeking, a trait related to O (McCrae & Costa, in press) The possibility of psychopharmacological interventions makes such theories of more than academic significance At present, however, none of them has been entirely persuasive Compared to the intricacies ofthe brain, our knowledge of neurophysiology and functioning is still quite primitive, and none ofthe key theorists in this field has even offered an explanation for all five factors The complexities are enormous For example, Depue, Krauss, and Spoont (1987; cited in Watson and Clark, in press) drew parallels between bipolar mood disorders and individual differences in E: In manic phases, bipolar patients show all the characteristic traits of extraverts, whereas during depressive episodes they Introduction 203 are functionally introverted As a trait, however, depression is not associated with introversion, but with N It is difficult to understand how the same brain mechanism can lead to one bipolar dimension of mania versus depression within individuals and to two orthogonal factors of E and N across individuals Theorists have much work to here Evolutionary perspectives and behavior genetics In recent years, evolutionary biologists have begun to offer explanations for behavior, and personality psychologists have become interested in evolutionary arguments (D M Buss, 1990; Hogan, 1983) Facile assertions that the five factors exist because they contribute to survival and reproduction are not very useful scientifically, and contemporary theorists are keenly aware ofthe difficulties in making supportable evolutionary arguments The central problem is that classic evolutionary theory was designed to explain the origin of species; it focuses on interspecies differences, not individual differences within a species In this respect, evolutionary psychology is better equipped to tell us how individuals are like all other people than how they are like only some other people (Kluckhohn & Murray, 1953) Some evolutionary models for individual differences have been proposed; for example, if the adaptive value of characteristics has fluctuated over evolutionary time, heritable differences may have developed (D M Buss, 1991) It is also possible, however, that individual differences in personality are, from the viewpoint of evolution, mere "noise," of no adaptive significance—a position argued cogently by Tooby and Cosmides (1990) The apparent adaptive utility of differentiation in personality among members of contemporary cultures may be the result of cultural evolution rather than biological evolution: Because people differ in levels of personality traits, cultures may have developed social and occupational niches that capitalized on them Although differences in standing on the five factors may not have adaptive significance, there are adaptive advantages in being able to detect these individual differences in others: It is very useful to know who is compliant and who is aggressive, who is diligent and who is negligent D M Buss (1991) argued that the five factors may represent "important dimensions ofthe social terrain that humans were selected to attend to and act upon" (p 473) This would account for their representation in many cultures, and would explode the view that they are mere cognitive fictions: Natural selection would hardly favor the preservation of illusory perceptions 204 McCrae and John Evolutionary approaches are worthy of serious interest because there is already substantial evidence on the heritability of many traits Research has been conducted for decades on the heritability of N and E, and recent work has suggested that O and C are also substantially heritable (Plomin & McClearn, 1990) Although Plomin and McClearn found no evidence of heritability with their 10-item measure of A, other studies have reported a strong genetic component in measures of altruism and aggression, which are central aspects of A (Rushton, Fulker, Neale, Nias, & H J Eysenck, 1986) Future studies should surely include measures of all five factors, and interesting questions about the relations of traits to factors could be addressed if component traits for all factors were individually assessed in these studies Developmental theories Although personality and temperament are traditional topics in developmental psychology, they have not been well integrated with theories of adult personality Developmental psychologists tend to be interested in the social and emotional reactions of children of a particular age, without much regard to the ultimate outcome of these characteristics in adulthood Longitudinal research (J Block, 1971; Caspi, Elder, & Bem, 1987) shows some continuities in personality from childhood into adulthood, but many discontinuities as well If we could identify at birth future extraverts and future introverts, future open and closed individuals, we could trace their development with a more informed eye; as it is, we must rely on retrospective-predictive designs that are limited by the kinds of observations initially made However, developmental psychologists should at least begin to consider the implications of the FFM for their theories J H Block and J Block (1980), for example, discussed the development of ego control, a variable that combines elements of low E and high C Are these dimensions indistinguishable in early childhood, necessitating a theory of their developmental differentiation? Or have theorists mistakenly conflated two independent dimensions? A child who is high in both E and C may have the same average level of ego control as one who is low on both dimensions; would both children show the same social and emotional development? Fortunately, there are now signs that this integration of developmental and adult models of personality is beginning (e.g., Angleitner & Ostendorf, 1991) Dynamic and interpersonal theories Theories of the origins of personality traits tell only half the story The other half is provided by Introduction 205 theories of the operation of traits in the real world, their functional—or dysfunctional—significance In the area of psychopathology, the task is reasonably well articulated The disorders recognized by psychiatry constitute the topic to be explained, and the questions concern the extent to which these disorders can be understood in terms of the five personality dimensions (Widiger & Trull, this issue) Historically, abnormal psychology has been the source of many theories of personality; it will surely offer an interesting perspective on the FFM Perhaps as a prelude to understanding abnormal psychology, we need theories that explain the dynamic operation of traits in normal life We know in general how individual traits are manifested in behavior: High E individuals talk and smile, high O individuals philosophize and attend museums, low A individuals brag and bully We know much less about how configurations of traits are shown, or how the flow of behavior is governed Are traits expressed by turns, or through processes like subsidiation and fusion that Murray (1938) postulated for the satisfaction of needs? Little, Lecci, and Watkinson (this issue) discuss the organization of life in terms of personal projects, and provide data linking features of these projects to the five factors Some theorists (J Block, 1965; Loevinger, 1966) have suggested that there are features of the ego that organize behavior; these are considered "master traits" that regulate other traits But McCrae and Costa (1990) argued that measures of ego resiliency, ego control, and ego development level are themselves related to the five factors (and intelligence), and that each of the five factors can be regarded both as a set of traits that must be structured and organized, and as a contributor to the organization and interaction of other traits Consider O and C: Open people are inquisitive If they are also conscientious, their curiosity may take the form of sustained and systematic study of a topic; if they are low in C, theirs will be an idle curiosity, absorbed by the passing interest of the moment Theoretical elaboration of such interactions of factors can bring a more dynamic flavor to trait psychology Finally, much of behavior is interpersonal, and the relationships individuals evolve are likely to be a complex function of the personalities of both participants The work of Thorne (1987) on interactions between introverts and extraverts, of Bond and Forgas (1984) on the relations between person perception and behavioral intensions, of Kelly and Conley (1987) on marital compatibility, of D M Buss (this issue) on tactics of manipulation, and of Muten (1991) on spousal perceptions of personality among behavioral medicine patients all touch on this issue A full 206 McCrae and John theoretical account of the contributions of personality to interpersonal relationships is a monumental task; how much more daunting it would be without the simplifying guidance of the FFM! Applications of the Five-Factor Model Hogan (1987) has noted that the five-factor model, perhaps for the first time, gives personality psychology a replicable phenomenon to be explained At the same time, it also provides a set of tools that can be used by psychologists in many different areas Several new instruments have been published which provide operationalizations of the model (see Briggs, this issue, for a review), and both rational and empirical methods for interpreting existing instruments in this framework have been proposed (John, 1989b; McCrae, Piedmont, & Costa, 1990) The appeal of the model is threefold: It integrates a wide array of personality constructs, thus facilitating communication among researchers of many different orientations; it is comprehensive, giving a basis for systematic exploration of the relations between personality and other phenomena; and it is efficient, providing at least a global description of personality with as few as five scores Of these, comprehensiveness is perhaps the most crucial Without a comprehensive model, studies using personality traits as predictors are inconclusive, because the most relevant traits may have been overlooked This is unlikely to happen when measures of all five factors are included in a study Indeed, even null results are informative in such a study: If none of the factors is related to the criterion, it may be time to abandon the search for personality predictors The five-factor model can be profitably used in most applied settings, as Tupes and Christal (1961) noted long ago, and as other practitioners are beginning to realize Hogan (in press) discusses the relevance of personality for industrial and organizational psychology Costa (1991) presents a series of articles exploring the utility of the model for clinical psychologists, and McCrae and Costa (1991) discuss its application in counseling Educational, forensic, and health psychologists should be able to find ways to utilize the model in their own disciplines Indeed, anywhere personality assessment has been employed may benefit from a consideration of the five-factor model Most of the articles in this special issue apply the model at a more conceptual level, not to understand individuals, but to clarify issues in disciplines related to personality psychology Widiger and Trull exam- Introduction 207 ine both personality disorders and some Axis I psychopathology from the perspective ofthe model Smith and Williams argue that the model, and the tradition of construct validity from which it has emerged, can resolve some of the confusion among the many, often redundant, concepts used in health psychology Graziano and Ward show how the five-factor model can illuminate school adjustment Watson and Clark continue to elaborate a model linking personality traits to emotions, and D M Buss uses the model to understand interpersonal relations from the perspective of evolutionary personality psychology Finally, Little, Lecci, and Watkinson explore the ways in which enduring personality dispositions affect the personal projects that occupy individuals in their daily lives This approach promises to help integrate nomothetic and idiographic approaches to personality, and shows some of the ways in which the FFM is relevant to an understanding of the ways in which individuals are unique All of these authors have found the five-factor model useful in some way; they have also noted ways in which it is limited As McAdams argues, personality psychology has historically been concerned with much more than common dimensions of individual difference, and the five-factor model itself cannot hope to account for all the richness of human individuality, or all the processes that contribute to a coherent life structure and an evolving life history But neither is it irrelevant to a personality psychology that strives to understand the whole person Every extravert may be extraverted in his or her own way, yet all are extraverts History, culture, and development provide the context of individual lives, but so enduring dispositions (McCrae & Costa, 1990) We believe its long history, cross-cultural replication, and empirical validation across many methods and instruments make the five-factor model a basic discovery of personality psychology—core knowledge upon which other findings can be built The model will certainly not explain everything that psychologists want to know about personality, but it does provide a useful starting point, and, indeed, a challenge: What can new scales, new methods, new conceptions of personality add to what we already can understand and predict from knowledge of the five factors? 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